BravinLee programs is very pleased to present new work on paper by Marcia Kure. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York.

Marcia Kure’s imagery is partially influenced by ancient cave drawings in southern Africa, as well as the traditional Uli murals of Nigeria. For this exhibition, the “Vogue Series” Kure has created a small army of female figures using a handmade pigment derived from the West African kola nut. Kure’s characters stand in profile and have a detached glamour, evoking the cold aggression, the languid but forced poses and impersonal sexuality of fashion and advertising. The clothes that Kure invents are exotic and surreal, resembling costumes from a militaristic science fiction fantasy and borrowing from a myriad of styles and sources that range from Victorian colonial to Gothic. Far from suggesting vulnerability, their eroticism suggests a kind of dangerousness. Precise and beautifully executed, these intricate images compel the viewer to consider a world condition that is anything but harmonious; these figures are designed to kick ass.